There Is No I In Team
by LittleFairy78
Summary: Tag to "The Wedding Job". It takes time for a lone wolf to get used to being part of a team. For Eliot Spencer it might have taken too much time to learn that there is nothing wrong with getting help from the people you work with.
1. Chapter 1

**There Is No "I" In**** Team**

Summary: Tag to "The Wedding Job". It takes time for a lone wolf to get used to being part of a team. For Eliot it might have taken too much time to learn that there is nothing wrong with getting help from the people you work with.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything connected to Leverage, and am not associated with the people who own the show. No copyright infringement is intended and no money is being made with this story as it was written for entertainment purposes only.

Rating due to some language and violence.

This is my first shot at writing Leverage. I absolutely love the first season, and the fact that the characters and their dynamics are still developing is great for getting story ideas.

Hope you enjoy!

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**There Is No "I" In Team - Chapter 1  
**

The Butcher of Kiev.

Of all the people who had to show up at this wedding while they were working a job it had to be the Butcher of Kiev.

Eliot should have known that hiding out in the kitchen while the rest of the team tried to finish the job wasn't going to cut it. With all the jobs he had worked over the past years, it was a small wonder something like this hadn't happened before. You always met twice in life. Well, at least those who had left their first encounter with him still breathing.

Which unfortunately included the Butcher of Kiev, though it hadn't been for a lack of trying on Eliot's part to make sure that the man wasn't going to ever surface again. But that job eight years ago had been a disaster from start to finish, and in the end he had been lucky to get out of it alive. Get in, retrieve the money, get out. That had been the plan.

As with all Russian mobsters, the Butcher hadn't taken the part about taking the money too kindly, and a simple in and out-job had suddenly involved a burning warehouse and a maniac with a knife who was trying to skewer him. A maniac who was now advancing on him, butcher's cleaver in hand, and with two henchmen backing him up.

Eliot wasn't too worried about the numbers. He had the henchmen in his peripheral vision all the time, and it didn't take more than one look for him to know that he could drop them in a few seconds. The Butcher was going to be a bit more difficult to handle, he still remembered that part vividly. And the guy didn't look as if he had stopped working out over the past couple of years.

But what really worried him was that the house was filled with people, the wedding was just about to happen, and the team was trying to work a job. If he lost control of the situation here in the kitchen, it was going to blow their cover and bust the job.

Eliot felt more than he saw one of the henchmen make a move on him, and he stopped contemplating and let his instincts take over. He spun around and blocked the blow aimed towards him, using his opponent's momentum against him to throw him off. Of course the second henchman took that as his cue to storm forward, but Eliot had expected that move. The problem with most hired muscle was that they were exactly that – muscle. Nothing else. No brain, no plan, no finesse. That was why clever people hired Eliot as their muscle, not some brainless bodybuilders like these two.

It took maybe three seconds for henchmen number two to slide down the back stairs and number one take a longer nap on the kitchen floor, and Eliot quickly turned back so that he was facing the Butcher again. This had only been the prelude, one that stood in absolutely no relation to what was still to come. The Butcher was another league entirely than those two goons.

During those couple of seconds that it had taken to drop the henchmen, the Butcher had somehow acquired a knife in addition to the meat cleaver, and seeing that Eliot noticed this, he grinned at him.

"And now, I will kill you."

Eliot lived on the premise to never say something you weren't prepared to do, but he didn't doubt for one second that the Butcher meant what he was saying. Which still didn't worry him overly much. Of course, in this case he was facing an opponent whose bite definitely was much, _much_ worse than his bark, but still. No, what worried Eliot was that he had ended up on that side of the kitchen where there were no knifes or meat cleavers lying around. Heck, there wasn't even a potato peeler anywhere in sight.

So Eliot grabbed the first object he could lay his hand on, which turned out to be a small frying pan, and met the Butcher's attack. Parrying the blows of a knife and a meat cleaver with a frying pan was less than optimal, but at least it was the kind of fight Eliot preferred. As soon as guns were involved, things got a whole lot more unpredictable. But knives meant close contact combat, and if there was one thing Eliot Spencer was a master in, then it was fighting all kinds of opponents on close range.

A few hits with the pan, then Eliot saw his chance and immediately latched onto it – one well-placed hard blow with the pan against the Butcher's hand and the meat cleaver was gone, and Eliot made a grab for the knife. The Butcher was no slacker when it came to hands on hands fighting either, Eliot knew that. Wrestling the knife out of his other hand was only one thing, but before he knew it the man had a firm grip on his wrist and was twisting the knife towards Eliot's face.

It was a dangerous dance. Eliot could hold his own against almost everybody. He had plenty of training. But it was always most dangerous to go up against an opponent who was just as well-trained and experienced as yourself. It was as if the Butcher anticipated his every move, ready to block and deflect every blow Eliot tried to score, every slash of the knife. And always, _always_ he tried to turn the knife against Eliot by sheer force.

And that was the one thing in which the Butcher probably had a slight advantage over him. Eliot was strong, but not as brutally strong as the other man. So in the end, it probably was his own fault. He should have known better than to let the Butcher maneuver him into a position where there was no quick way for him to move aside, no chance to use the Butcher's own momentum and force for his own advantage. Suddenly he found himself pressed up against the counter, and before his instincts could let him step to the side and free his range of movement again, the Butcher had a firm grip on his wrist and pressed the knife towards Eliot's body with full force.

The only movement Eliot was capable of in his trapped position was a slight shift to the side, but it wasn't enough.

A searing pain shot through his left side as the knife cut into him, and as his eyes narrowed reflexively he saw a triumphant grin spread over the Butcher's face. The pain was bad. Bad enough for his vision to blacken for a moment, but that split second was all the slack Eliot allowed himself. If he gave in to the pain now, he was dead. And his survival instinct was too strong to let that happen. There'd be time to deal with that later, for now he had to use the fact that the Butcher thought he had him beaten. That was always the moment when an opponent's defenses were down.

Tapping into his last adrenaline reserves, Eliot stomped on the Butcher's instep as hard as he could. Thick-soled boots did their job, and while it wasn't going to incapacitate the man for long, it was enough to throw him off balance for a second. All Eliot needed to push the man back, throwing him further off balance.

The knife hurt even more going out than it had going in, but there was no time for that now. Later. After the job. Before the Butcher had the chance to fully recuperate from the fact that an opponent he had believed already beaten was still fighting back, Eliot landed a hard punch in the man's scarred face. The Butcher tried to go for the knife again, but it slid from Eliot's grip even though he could have sworn that he had a firm hold on the handle.

With a roar of rage the Butcher threw himself at Eliot, spinning them around and pinning Eliot against the kitchen's middle island. For a second, Eliot wondered how far the wedding had progressed. If they were already done with the vows and people started mingling about, somebody was soon going to notice what was going on here. This needed to end.

But that was all the time he had for contemplation. Obviously, the Butcher was thinking along similar lines because he kept Eliot firmly pinned against the kitchen island, grabbing for a knife on the counter beside him. Eliot knew that he had left no knife lying on the middle island, but there was something else that might work. And admittedly, right now he was desperate enough to try.

While the Butcher was still fumbling around for the knife, Eliot reached behind his head for the tray he knew was lying there. The movement sent a searing pain down his entire left side, but he bit his lip and stretched further, and yet another bit further, until his fingers closed around the first small, soft objects that were lying there.

With every ounce of strength he had left, Eliot brought the hand holding the mushrooms forward and pressed them into the Butcher's eyes. Fresh lemon juice wasn't going to kill anyone, but if it got in the eyes, it burnt like bitch. The Butcher screamed and reflexively dropped the knife, bringing his hands up against his eyes, wiping and rubbing at them as if this was going to make it better. It had to be a blow to the man's ego, Eliot thought, getting burnt by him twice – once with fire, and once with lemon juice.

As the Butcher leaned back in pain he also loosened his hold that kept Eliot pressed against the kitchen island, and before the Russian had any chance to get past the stinging pain in his eyes, Eliot reached for the nearest tray and brought it down on the man's head, hard.

There was one thing to say about rich people, they didn't go halfway about anything, not even the details. The tray was solid silver, and with a resounding clang it sent the Butcher crashing to the floor.

Eliot sank back to lean against the counter, his breaths coming in harsh, pained bursts. His whole side felt as if it was on fire, and the Butcher had landed one or two hits that really made his face smart.

Just as Eliot brought up a hand to see if his nose was bleeding, Nate came into the kitchen. Eliot didn't have the strength left to push himself off the counter or even pull up into a straight position, but Nate didn't seem to think anything of it as he took in the damage and destruction the fight had left all over the kitchen. He was standing slightly behind Eliot and to his right, peering around the corner of the kitchen island at the fallen Butcher, the mushrooms and the tray lying beside his head.

"Did you just kill a guy with an appetizer?"

Eliot didn't know whether to laugh or scream. Of course the Butcher wasn't dead – _again_ – but he wasn't in the mood for joking right now. He needed to make an inventory of his injuries first. And his first instinct was to tell Nate about the knife wound, but he shook that idea off. It hadn't stopped him from taking out the Butcher, so it couldn't be that bad. It only hurt like hell, but there was nothing the other man would be able to do about that, either. Besides, the job wasn't done yet, and from his position Nate couldn't see the wound or the blood, if there was any. Eliot would take care of it himself after he had caught his breath. It wouldn't be the first time. Definitely not.

So all he did was shake his head.

"I don't know. Maybe."

Nate smiled and shook his head with a slightly disbelieving raise of his eyebrows.

"Okay then. We're wrapping this up, get ready to leave."

Eliot nodded, and Nate left the kitchen again. For a few seconds, Eliot simply stood there and tried to breathe. Damn, that had been close. He had nearly blown the whole job by letting the Butcher get the better of him, and he should have known better than to let that happen. But there'd be time to worry about that later, right now he needed to start cleaning up.

Kitchen twine made for great impromptu rope to bind the Butcher's hands and legs. Once that was done, Eliot grabbed his bag and slowly made his way towards the small bathroom down the corridor from the kitchen. He needed to check on the wound and make sure that it wasn't going to stop him from wrapping up the job.

Once in the bathroom and with the door firmly locked behind him, Eliot opened the front of his shirt and carefully shrugged out of it. There was a gash in the fabric where the knife had entered, and a liberal amount of blood was staining the blue shirt. Good thing that Nate had not been able to see his left side earlier. Dried blood was making the fabric stick to the wound, and with his teeth grit Eliot pulled it away.

Looking at himself in the bathroom mirror, Eliot tried to judge how bad the injury was. The wound was still bleeding, which was bad. It was going to need stitches, and sooner rather than later, but even sooner would have to wait for a little while. Once the job was done and they were somewhere where he could take an hour with a mirror and some surgical thread he was going to patch himself up. It wouldn't be the first time.

For now, Eliot tore his bloodstained shirt into pieces. The largest piece he rolled up and put over the wound, then he took two long stripes of fabric and wrapped it around his torso, pulling the makeshift compress tight against the wound. The pain when he applied pressure was agonizing, and Eliot bit his lip nearly hard enough to draw blood to keep from screaming. The bathroom tilted around him, and he had to steady himself against the sink for a few seconds until his vision cleared again and he could move without toppling over.

On any other occasion he would have rifled through the cabinet behind the mirror in search of some painkillers or other medication, but this was a guest bathroom he had been told he could use, and Eliot was sure that he wasn't going to find any medication in there. For now, the bandage would have to do.

Eliot opened his bag and pulled out the second chef shirt he had brought. He hadn't planned on using it for that purpose, rather his thoughts had been that one shirt would get dirty while cooking, and posh people generally didn't like a chef with stains on his shirt running the buffet. But his reasons for bringing the second shirt aside, now it would help cover up the damage. And if he kept his left arm hanging beside his body – not a big feat considering that moving the arm _hurt_ – the bandage underneath the shirt was barely visible.

Eliot took another few seconds to brace himself, then he wiped the blood off the porcelain sink, washed his hands and went back into the kitchen. Nate came back into the kitchen just a few moments later, a black leather bag in his hands. He put it onto the kitchen island and opened it. For a moment, Eliot forgot about the pain in his side as he saw all the dollar bills lying inside the bag in neat stacks. It had worked. The job was done, they had the money. That was the main thing.

Nate closed the bag again and tossed Eliot a pair of keys. They were angling for his left hand, but in a last split-second Eliot forewent his reflexes and grabbed them awkwardly with his right. If he had tried to catch them with his left hand, he wouldn't have been able to stop the pain from showing.

"Put that in the trunk." Nate said, pointing at the bag. Eliot eyed the keys to the car suspiciously, not really understanding what the other man was driving at.

"Of _that_ car?"

Nate only nodded, then he started giving orders to Hardison over the in-ear piece. If Nate had noticed anything about Eliot's condition, he didn't let it on. But then again, Eliot had a tight reign on what he was showing on the outside, and he was sure that he had been able to keep most of the pain from showing on his face.

So while Nate was busy having the team wrap up the job, Eliot took the bag with the money and started towards the garage. If Nate wanted the money in this particular car, he was going to put the money in that car. Nate was the one with the plan, after all, and right now Eliot didn't have either time or strength to waste it on discussions. The sooner they got out of here, the sooner he could tend to the stab wound and forget all about this cruddy job.

The car he was looking for was not in the garage but standing outside, ready to take the newlywed couple off into the honeymoon. Eliot unlocked the trunk, put the bag inside with all the other suitcases that had been prepared for the honeymoon and slammed the lid shut again. Knowing Nate, the man had given him the spare keys for the car. But better safe than sorry. He'd get back inside, give Nate the keys back and then they could get out of here.

There was a small door at the side of the garage through which he'd be able to get back into the house, and Eliot made his way over towards it. But his feet started feeling strangely numb, and his legs didn't seem to follow his command properly anymore. He had been injured often enough to know that the blood loss was getting to him, but he grit his teeth and opened the door to step inside. The job had to be finished first.

The garage was huge, but what else could you expect from a rich guy like Moscone? Those people had money, and they showed it. There were maybe six or eight cars parked in the huge garage. Eliot had barely noticed it walking out to drop the bag in the car, but right now the distance through the garage seemed huge. Cold sweat broke out on his forehead, and Eliot had to support himself with his hand against a wall for a second to stop the room from spinning.

His face was cold from sweat, his vision was getting blurry, and his side was throbbing in agony. He needed to get out of here and somewhere where he could stitch himself up, fast. Some fluids, some rest and a few pills, and he'd be fine again in no time.

No time.

Right. That was it. He didn't have any time to waste. The job had to be wrapped up, then they could get out of here.

But the room continued to spin around him as soon as Eliot took his hand away from the steadying wall. Navigating the small passage between the wall and the parked cars, Eliot took laborious step after step towards the door that would bring him back into the house, but he hadn't even gotten halfway through the garage when he realized that he wasn't going to make it. His vision was blackening at the edges, his own heart was pumping loudly in his ears, and even without looking he knew that his wound was still bleeding, blood seeping through the makeshift bandage and his shirt.

Well, wasn't that going to be buckets of fun trying to explain to Nate and the rest of the team why he was bleeding like a stuck pig. If he wasted any more time, Hardison and Nate were going to have to carry him out of here. And wouldn't that put a damper on the whole wedding planner disguise?

Eliot blinked against the sudden fuzziness of his vision. The shapes of the cars blurred in front of his eyes, and as he reached for the wall to steady himself his hand suddenly reached into emptiness.

Eliot tried to catch his balance, but his body was already falling, his feet wouldn't follow his command, and the last thing he was aware of was a stab of agony through his side as he fell to the ground. He had a flash of insight then that he was equipped with an earwig and a mic, and could have called for help at any time. If he had thought about it. But after years of working alone, calling for help hadn't even occurred to him. He had only ever learned to rely on himself, not on others.

But now he could have, while he still had the strength.

Too late now.

Everything turned dark.

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*Leverage*Leverage*Leverage*

**TBC...**

*Leverage*Leverage*Leverage*

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Thanks for reading. As always, please let me know what you think. Thanks a lot.


	2. Chapter 2

It took a little while to get this up, sorry about that. But I was agonizing over where to best break this off, or whether or not to break it off at all. In the end I decided to go with the POV breaks as chapter breaks, which means that there will be one more chapter after this one.

Enjoy!

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The wedding was over, bride and groom were happily married and on their way to their honeymoon with an unexpected surprise waiting for them in the trunk of their car, Mrs. Moscone had made a quick exit and as expected, Mr. Moscone hadn't wasted any time in changing the pass codes to his offshore accounts so that his wife wouldn't get to the money.

Hardison had the codes, which meant that the job was over. Nate allowed himself a sip of wine and a few seconds to bask in the feeling of success that always came with a job well done. The team was assembled in the kitchen, all ready and set to leave. In fact, the only one who was still missing was Eliot, who hadn't yet returned from his trip to deposit the money in the young couple's car. Once he got back, they could pack up and leave, another job gone well.

Nate put the wineglass away and checked his watch with a frown.

What with everything that had happened, Mrs. Moscone's flight and listening in to the phone call that gave them access to the new pass codes he hadn't noticed, but Eliot had been gone for over fifteen minutes now. Much too long for a simple run to the car and back. There had been no distress call over Eliot's microphone, but still Nate couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. Of course Eliot was more than capable of dealing with an attacker. If any of them were, it was Eliot. But even if there were still some Russian mobsters on the premises and Elliot had run into them, he'd have called it in to let the rest of the team know about it.

Something was wrong here.

Nate put his glass down and looked at the rest of the team.

"Anybody seen Eliot in the last few minutes?"

Sophie, Parker and Hardison exchanged glances, but they all conveyed the same message. No they hadn't.

"Damn it." Nate ran a hand through his hair, thinking frantically before he started speaking into his mic. "Eliot, where are you?"

But the only answer he got was silence over the earpiece.

"Eliot, answer me!"

"Nate, what's wrong?" Sophie asked with a frown. "I thought Eliot was here the whole time. He didn't call over the mic, not that I heard."

"He was here. I sent him out to deposit the money in the car, and he hasn't checked back in."

Hardison cocked his head to the side, one eyebrow raised. "How long ago was that?"

"Fifteen minutes."

"Damn."

Nate wholeheartedly agreed with that statement. Something was wrong here. They needed to find Eliot, and fast.

"Sophie, Parker, check the ground floor and the garden. The wedding tent, everywhere. Hardison, you go outside through the garage, see if Eliot got caught up somewhere along the way. I'll circle around the house and meet you in front of the garage."

The team immediately dispersed through the house, and Nate hurried towards the front door to circle around to the garage. The Butcher and his two henchmen were safe and secured in a storage room in the basement, awaiting the arrival of the authorities that Nate was going to call on them as soon as they were away safely. They couldn't be the reason why Eliot had checked back in. But with the illustrious guest list, there were more bad guys on the premises right now than in the local police station's holding cells, so there simply was no telling. Eliot had been involved in many jobs before they had started working together, there was a very good possibility that he had met more people in this house than just the Butcher of Kiev before.

Nate wanted to slap himself for not making sure more thoroughly that something like this wasn't going to happen. The arrival of the Butcher had already come out of the blue and had jumbled their plans somewhat. This couldn't happen again. More thorough background checks, that's what they were going to do in the future. With all their pasts, it was a necessity to make sure that nobody involved in the jobs remembered them from another con in the past.

And if this turned out to be nothing but a fluke, if Eliot didn't check in because he was flirting with a girl or admiring Moscone's cars, there would be hell to pay.

But first they had to find him, of course. And once they knew what had happened, he would worry about how to deal with it. First things first. Find Eliot, finish the job, deal with everything later.

Nate left the house through the front door and turned to the left. The garage was on the side of the house, he'd only need to circle around to the left to get there. So far, there was nothing suspicious. The occasional throng of guests was milling around, but with the newlywed couple off to their honeymoon and the father of the bride otherwise occupied, the celebration had pretty much died down by now.

Nate was halfway around the house when he suddenly heard Hardison's voice through his earpiece, and the tone of voice alone was enough to realize that something was seriously wrong.

"Nate, we have a problem."

"Did you find Eliot?"

"Yeah, he's in the garage. We need an ambulance."

Nate started running. He didn't care what he had to look like, running past the house in his minister's clothes. Hardison's words had him worried. He knew the other man wouldn't mention calling an ambulance if they could deal with the injury on their own. Involving a hospital stay could endanger the job, Hardison knew that. He wouldn't mention an ambulance if he didn't think they needed one. Besides, right now Nate didn't care. His people were more important than the job.

"Sophie, did you hear that?"

"Calling an ambulance now," her voice came over the earpiece. "What shall I tell them?"

"Hardison, talk to me."

"He's losing a lot of blood," the computer expert said, his voice tight and worried. "He's not conscious, and his breathing is kinda flat. Looks like he tried to bandage the wound himself, but I have no idea what happened."

The Butcher had happened, Nate was sure of that. Which led to the question why Eliot had not told him about the injury earlier, when they had been alone in the kitchen. Another thing to worry about later.

"The ambulance is on its way." Sophie relayed a few moments later. Nate nodded, mind frantically going through their next steps. Considering the standard response times, the ambulance would be here in less than ten minutes. And even though the party was pretty much dying down around them, the arrival of paramedics was going to cause a bit of a stir. They didn't need any additional attention on them right now.

"Sophie, Parker, I want you to clear things for the arrival of the ambulance. Moscone should be otherwise occupied, but make sure that he doesn't notice what's going on. The last thing we need right now is for him to get suspicious of us."

Nate hated to think of the job right now, when he didn't even know what was going on with Eliot yet. But that was part of what they were doing – they had the team to consider. And he was the one who was holding the team together. If anybody needed to detach himself and consider the situation as a whole and not just the most urgent problem, it was him.

"Okay." Maybe he just imagined it, but Sophie's voice sounded as if she understood why he was giving that particular order. "Parker, meet me in the kitchen."

"On my way."

Knowing that the two women would take care of that, Nate tuned out thoughts about Moscone and the stir the arrival of an ambulance was going to cause. Now it was time to figure out just how bad things stood about Eliot. Finally, Nate reached the outer garage door and quickly pulled it open. The spacious room behind was brightly lit, the glare from the spotlights reflecting in the windshields of the cars. But no trace of either Hardison or Eliot anywhere.

"Hardison!"

"Over here!"

The call had come from Nate's right, from behind one of the parked limousines. As he got closer, Nate saw what he first thought was a slightly discolored stain on the wall. Only when he got close did he realize that it was a smear of blood, roughly the shape and size of a hand. Heart beating fast in his chest, Nate sprinted around the car.

And froze.

Hardison was kneeling on the ground, looking up at the sound of Nate's approach. Despite his dark skin tone, the younger man looked pale, and his eyes were wide as he looked up at his boss. Hardison had taken off the colorful scarf he had been wearing as part of his DJ-outfit and was pressing it against Eliot's side with both hands.

Eliot.

Now there was the real reason why Nate had frozen on the spot. If Hardison was pale, Eliot was positively white. And limp. His eyes were closed, he wasn't moving, and there was blood soaking through his shirt and the scarf Hardison was pressing against the wound. For a moment Nate simply stared, then he crossed the remaining distance and knelt down beside the two men.

"How bad is it?" He asked, even though one look at the amount of blood already told him enough about the seriousness of the situation.

Hardison shook his head. "I'm not a doctor, Nate. That much blood? That can't be good, that's all I know."

And Nate could only agree wholeheartedly. That amount of blood definitely wasn't good. And even though it seemed as if Hardison's pressure bandage was controlling the bleeding by now, Nate could not quite push away the nagging thought that maybe it was simply because Eliot had already lost too much blood to still be bleeding heavily.

Why hadn't he said anything earlier?

That was the question it all came back to. Nate was sure that the wound was the Butcher's work. But they had been alone in the kitchen earlier. So why hadn't Eliot mentioned that he was hurt then? They could have gotten him to the hospital with time to spare, before things got as critical as they seemed now. And they would have had time to make up a story as to what had happened to Eliot.

But fact was Eliot hadn't said a word about his injury.

Instead, he had obviously tried to take care of it himself. From what Nate could see under the scarf Hardison was still pressing against Eliot's side, the younger man had put a makeshift pressure bandage on the wound. Nate knew that Eliot was well-versed in field triage, and dealing with wounds. Hell, he had stitched up Nate after that bank job had nearly gone to hell. But _especially_ Eliot should have known that the wound needed professional care, and that he wasn't going to be able to finish the job in this condition.

Later.

All those questions would have to wait until later. Right now, they needed to make sure Eliot stayed alive to answer them.

Nate reached up and pressed two fingers against Eliot's jugular. The younger man's skin was cold and clammy, and the pulse Nate found beating against his fingers was weak and too thready for his liking. But it was still there, that at least was something.

"Ambulance is on its way?" Hardison asked, even though he must have heard their earlier conversation over his earpiece.

"Yeah, they should be here soon. Sophie and Parker are taking care of everything outside."

"They better hurry," Hardison mumbled, and Nate knew that he wasn't talking about their two teammates. "Damn it Nate, what happened?"

Nate shifted around so that he could keep an eye on both, Eliot and the garage door. Feeling Hardison's gaze on him, he shrugged slightly.

"My best guess right now is the Butcher."

Hardison shook his head, the muscles in his arms tensing as he shifted slightly and reapplied pressure onto the wound.

"Man, that doesn't make no sense. If the Butcher got him, why didn't he call for help? He's still wearing his earwig, he only needed to say the word. Why didn't he call us, Nate?"

"I don't know," Nate sighed.

And he didn't know for sure, but he had a very good idea.

Eliot was essentially a lone wolf.

They all were, to a degree, but none of them as much as Eliot. It had been like that even back when Nate had still considered himself to be standing on the other side. Back when he had chased every member of his team at least once.

Sophie had always been in it for her personal gain, for the money, the artwork, for the pleasure of the knowledge that she owned things she wasn't supposed to be owning.

Parker did it for the thrill. Of course money paid a role. Money always paid a role, for all of them. But for Parker, it was the thrill of the act of stealing that did it.

And Hardison – well. Computer fraud wasn't exactly a team crime, either.

So they all weren't team players by default. But Eliot was playing in a different league altogether. In Eliot's earlier jobs, he had only ever relied on himself to come out unscathed. And it hadn't merely been his freedom that had been at stake in case he screwed up. Eliot always risked his life for the jobs he had taken on, with no safety net to fall back on, and nobody on the sidelines looking out for him.

Eliot wasn't used to calling for help because he wasn't used to have someone who was actually _there_ to back him up. And Nate didn't think that they had been working together for long enough. Not long enough for Eliot to change something as integral to him as the idea that he was fighting alone.

Nate didn't share any of these thoughts with Hardison as they waited for the ambulance to arrive. Now wasn't the time, and Hardison wasn't the right person for this. Not now, when he still had both his hands pressed against Eliot's wound in an attempt to still the other man's bleeding. But it was definitely something Nate wasn't going to be able to ignore for much longer.

It had sounded so easy, forming a team out of the four of them, combining their respective skills to orchestrate the jobs. Take the best of each of them and put it together in a way so that the bad guys didn't know what hit them until it was too late. And it _had_ been easy, until now. Too easy, and maybe that realization came too late.

Nate only hoped it wasn't too late.

The ambulance response time was good, way beyond the ten minutes Nate had estimated, and secretly feared. Maybe six minutes since Sophie had called them, it was hard to tell. But no matter how many minutes, it seemed endlessly long until the door to the garage burst open again and two paramedics came through. They were followed closely by Parker and Sophie, the latter of which was talking to one of the medics, gesturing exuberantly as she hurried alongside him.

Nate would have to ask her for the cover story she was giving to the paramedics as soon as they were on the way to the hospital. And they would have to find an identity for Eliot that they could put on the hospital admittance forms. He would need to talk to Hardison about that. The computer expert was the one who had created their various aliases, and for this they needed an identity that had insurance which would cover the treatment. And it had to be an identity they could discard later on.

Nate hated himself for thinking about these things now of all times. But he couldn't help how his mind had adapted to thinking about them as a team, trying to figure out the best way to get all of them out of a situation unscathed. It didn't mean he wasn't worried. On the contrary. He only needed to look down at Eliot, to listen to his ragged, labored breathing, to feel the worry rise inside him. But it wasn't going to help Eliot, himself or the team if he let that worry take over. That was the brutal truth. So for now, he was simply going to do what he did best. He was going to rationalize, and keep the team together.

Nate gestured the paramedics over towards their position, and from then on it all was a blur.

Nate and Hardison made space for the paramedics, and Nate could only watch in complete bewilderment at the flurry of activities around the younger man. He was no stranger to seeing emergency medical treatment. He had seen enough of that during Sam's illness. And he knew that feeling of tension that surrounded the treatment of a critical situation compared to a non-critical one. The air felt somehow charged and strained when doctors reacted to a life-threatening situation, and it was the same kind of tension Nate was feeling right now.

He could only stand back and stare as the paramedics treated to Eliot. To his left, Hardison was mirroring his silent stare down at their fallen team member, the hands hanging loosely at his side still covered in Eliot's blood. Sophie was standing to his other side, holding on tightly to Nate's right arm, even though for the life of him he couldn't have said whether it was to ground herself or in an attempt to comfort him.

Before Nate had the chance to get a word of protest in, Eliot was loaded and secured on a stretcher and wheeled out into the waiting ambulance. All he was aware of was Sophie's shocked face when she got the first look at the amount of blood on the ground, and the siren of the ambulance driving off before he could even think about letting the paramedics know that he was going to ride with them.

"Nate?"

Sophie's voice was barely able to filter through the haze that started to settle in Nate's head. It was too much. Too many memories, too many questions as to whose fault it was, too much reality. This shouldn't have happened in a well-planned job. It would be so much easier to just let the haze take over and not struggle to keep it all together.

He could do with a drink right now.

"Nate?"

Nate blinked a few times and drew a deep breath before he turned to face Sophie and the rest of his team. They were looking to him for some sense of stability now, so he had to keep it together.

"Parker, grab whatever gear we have left in the house and get it into the car. Sophie, I need to know what cover story you told the 911 operator and the paramedics before they got here. We need to get our stories straight. Hardison, we need an ID with medical insurance for Eliot." The younger man turned a glassy stare towards Nate at that request, which made Nate wonder if his words had even penetrated. "Hardison? Did you hear me?"

Hardison blinked rapidly a few times, then he nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I heard you. I…all identities have medical coverage. We can pick any of them."

Nate nodded, but the concern for Hardison didn't vanish entirely. As soon as they got to the hospital, he was going to make sure that the other man got checked out for shock. One team member down was already bad enough, he wasn't going to be that careless again and let another of them get hurt.

As he looked around, he noticed that Parker had already vanished from the garage, probably to get their equipment together and loaded up so that they could leave.

"Okay, then let's get going. Hardison, you might want to wash your hands before we leave."

In reflex, Hardison looked at his hands to see what Nate was talking about. His eyes widened when he realized that his hands were coated with blood, as if he hadn't even been aware of that fact before.

"God…" He grew a distinct grayish shade of pale from one moment to the next, and Nate saw him jerk just in time to take a step to the side before Hardison bent slightly at the waist and threw up the contents of his stomach. The vomit ended up splattering to the garage floor, and all over Sophie's brand new boots. To her credit, Sophie didn't even seem to notice. The worried lines on her face deepened and she determinedly reached for Hardison's arm, pulling him towards the back of the garage.

"Come on, there's a guest bathroom just down the hall." She turned back towards Nate. "We'll be out in a few minutes."

Nate nodded and watched as Sophie led a completely pliable Hardison back into the house. As soon as they arrived at the hospital, he was definitely going to make sure that Hardison was checked out.

Nate hated hospitals, but for now there was no avoiding them. If one of his team ended up there, that's where he was going to go. So he'd better get moving and see if Parker was finished with loading the car. It was only a matter of time before the paramedics or someone here at the party who had witnessed their arrival was going to call the police, and they needed to be gone by then. This was all complicated enough without having to deal with the police on top of everything else.

He really, _really_ needed a drink right now.

* * *

**TBC...**

**...TBC...**

**...TBC  
**

* * *

Thanks for reading. As always, please let me know what you think. Thanks a lot.


	3. Chapter 3

So here is the last part. This was supposed to be a simple one-chaptered tag, but somehow it grew. Well, it is done now, so I hope you enjoy this part. Thanks for sticking with me through my first Leverage story. Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 3**

Pain.

It hurt. It hurt so much that every fiber of his body wanted to scream, but all his mind could come up with was the urge to laugh.

He knew all about pain. Over the years, he had dealt it out just as much as he had received it. He had learned how to deal with it. If they thought it was going to break him with pain, they were mistaken.

They could as well stop the interrogation and get it over with.

He wasn't going to talk.

…

…

…

"What did he say?"

Female voice, accented. British, probably. Had there been any British people involved in this job? He couldn't remember, it was all so hazy.

"Eliot?"

Huh, so she knew who he was. Had his identity been compromised? Come to think of it, which identity had he been using, anyway? Didn't matter, he wasn't going to tell them anything. No matter how bad the pain was.

He tried to put defiance into his voice, he really did, but even breathing hurt. If any words actually left his lips, they couldn't have been more than a whisper.

Silence.

Then another voice.

"I think he's hallucinating."

A male voice this time, with a distinct lilt to it that made Eliot associate dark skin an a cocky grin, though he had no idea why.

"Why, what did he say?"

"He said _'I don't have the monkey'_."

There, he had said it. Let them see what they made of that. He wasn't going to give them anything else.

Another wave of pain coursed through his body, and Eliot gave in to the darkness.

…

…

…

"…made us watch it, to _unwind_, as he said. Sitting still for hours and drinking orange soda, that's unwinding for _him_. But did they let me leave? No. They forced me to sit through the entire thing and said that Nate was going to call if anything changed over night."

It was a different voice. Another woman, but her voice higher, and not accented. And she was talking a mile a minute, like an excited girl who had too many stories to tell and was trying to get them all out at once.

Did they really think he was going to break by this? Rapid-talking torture? Seriously, this was f-ed up. There was pain, his whole body was a collection of various pains and hurts, but none of that pain was caused by the rapid talking.

It felt like he was floating, at times connecting with his hurting body, then drifting away again, the rapid words a background staccato that lulled him away.

"…and seriously, _eleven_ guys to rob a casino? Everybody knows that you don't work a break-in with eleven people on the job. Okay, so it was three casinos, but it was only one vault, right? So technically, it only counts as one. And all that high-tech really only made the thing look flashy and cool, but it's all crap. I would have been in and out of that thing, _with_ the money, in thirty-six minutes. And I wouldn't have needed a Chinese acrobat, or a duplicate of the vault in some abandoned warehouse. Really, whoever made that up had no idea what they were talking about. They should ask me how it's done. And Hardison actually _shushed_ me when I said what a load of crap that whole scheme was. Can you believe that? Anyway, I hid his laptop after that, and he wasn't so cocky then, let me tell you that…"

Eliot couldn't make much sense of the words. Not really. But they were soothing, in a weird and twisted way. They gave him something else to focus on aside from the pain. So he listened, word after rapid word, as his mind blanked and he drifted off again.

…

…

…

"…and dude, I'm telling you, I wasn't going to go in between _that_. Cooping Parker up for longer than an hour at a time? Not a good idea, if you know what I mean. I don't envy Nate right now, but that's what you get for being the boss."

It was the black man's voice again, Eliot noticed. Though he still had no idea why he was so convinced that the man was black without ever actually seeing him. Those people who had him seemed to come and go continuously. He never seemed to be able to tell when one of them came and the other left, which told him a lot. Either they were drugging him, or he was injured badly. And either way it meant he was fucked. But at least then it would be over soon. And he was damn sure that if he went out, he was going out without telling those people anything.

"Anyway, before I forget – you owe me, man. I really liked that scarf, you know? It wasn't just a scarf, it was a fashion statement."

Scarf. What scarf? He was fairly sure that he hadn't been working a scarf-retrieval job. The thought alone was ridiculous. So what scarf was the guy talking about?

It didn't make sense, but then, nothing did. Nothing but the pain – pain always made sense. A dull throbbing all over his body that reminded him with every heartbeat that a whole lot of things were wrong, and he had no idea how to get out of this.

"Or you could just pay up for the scarf. I have a feeling that there's a pair of expensive boots I'm going to have to compensate for."

This was getting more and more ridiculous. Scarves and boots? Eliot would have laughed, wanted to laugh, but breathing was already difficult enough. In fact, it was getting harder and harder, and he suspected that all that talk about scarves and boots had only been meant to distract him while they did something to him.

Something started beeping to his right. A timer? A bomb?

He didn't know. Didn't care, because he couldn't breathe.

"Eliot?"

He was sucking in air, but nothing ended up in his lungs.

"Help! I need some help in here!"

Hurried footsteps, voices mingling, talking. People crowding around him, and he couldn't move a muscle to defend himself.

"What's going on?" The black man all but yelled.

"Please leave the room, sir."

Another female voice, not one he had heard before.

"The hell I will! What's wrong with him? What's happening?"

"Call Doctor Williams, he needs to get down here stat!"

"Acute respiratory distress."

"O2 saturation going down."

The voices started to mingle as the haze grew.

"…pulse 146…"

"…BP going down…"

"…crashing…"

And then the man's voice again, in a distinctly panicked tone. "Eliot!"

Then…darkness.

…

…

…

Awareness was a disconcerting experience. It felt as if Eliot became gradually aware of every part of his body, one after another. And every single one of them hurt or was in a state of discomfort. Arms, legs, torso, head. Everything was heavy, and hurting. His limbs felt weighed down. His chest and side were stinging something fierce. And a marching band was holding practice in his head.

But he was alive. At least he thought he was. That was something, at least.

There was something on his face, sneaking over his cheeks and running into his nose. A tube. A tube spilling something in his nose. It smelled like plastic and antiseptic. Something was beeping beside his head, slowly and regularly.

Hospital.

It made sense, he guessed. He remembered pain, and the thought of a job gone bad. It wouldn't have been the first time that he ended up in hospital after a job that went to hell. Maybe he should open his eyes to try and find out more about where he was and what had happened. Maybe he had gotten at least a little lucky and had ended up in a country where they understood his language.

The lights in the room were dimmed, but it was still bright enough to see after he had blinked a few times to adjust his eyes to the light. He wasn't in a room, that was the first thing he noticed. Not a normal hospital room, in any case. He was in a cubicle with curtains closing it off on both sides. There was a couple of monitors standing to his left, and a shockingly large number of wires and tubes ran from those into an IV in the back of his hand or sneaked underneath the thin sheet covering him and out of sight.

ICU.

He still had no idea how he had ended up here, but if he was in ICU that meant it must have been bad.

There was a small flash of movement to his right, but Eliot had to realize that he was too weak to turn his head as quickly as he would have liked. Weak, that's what he was right now. He was weak. And he hated it.

After the laborious process of turning his head so that he could see better, he realized with quite some surprise that there was somebody sitting beside his bed. He must have been pretty out of it to not immediately realize that he wasn't alone. Normally he never once let his guard down like that.

It was Nate who was sitting next to him. He was sprawled uncomfortably in a chair, arms crossed over his chest, head hanging slightly to the side. His eyes were closed, mouth hanging slightly open in sleep.

Nate. Of course, how could he have forgotten? The team. The job at the wedding. The Butcher of Kiev. Eliot remembered the feeling of the knife going into his side. He knew that the wound had been bad, but he had really thought he was going to hold out until the job was over and done with.

Obviously, he had been wrong.

Eliot's recollection of what had happened was a bit fuzzy, but he was sure he hadn't heard the last of it yet. Which was only right. He had nearly screwed up the job, after all. Endangered the others, too. If that wasn't the definition of a screw-up, Eliot didn't know what was.

But it seemed to be night, and for now Nate was still asleep. Nate wouldn't be here if any of the others was in trouble because of what happened, or if the job had gone so far downhill that they had to work hard to keep everything under wraps. For now things seemed to be under control.

No reason why he couldn't close his eyes and drift off again.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

The next time Eliot woke, it was a clearer, easier process. He drifted slowly back towards awareness, but once he struggled his mind out of the mental haze, it was only a matter of a few seconds for his brain to catch up with the fact that it was conscious again. He opened his eyes, blinking rapidly against the bright lights.

So it was no longer night.

His eyes slowly adjusted to the light in the room, giving his brain time enough to process as much as he could from his surroundings.

He was still in the same bed, in the curtained off cubicle he remembered distantly from the night before. And seen in daylight, the shocking amount of machinery situated next to his bed left no doubt about the fact that he was in ICU.

An IV was running into the back of his left hand, and an oxygen tube was running into his nose. There were sensors on his chest, and some wires and tubes that he couldn't even guess the purpose of vanished underneath the sheet and out of sight.

There was no real pain, just a numb sting in his left side. But Eliot knew the slightly dull and floating feeling that was coursing through him right now, and he held no doubt whatsoever that a lot of pain medication was taking the edge of a whole lot of pain right now.

But he was awake and coherent, that was something. Enough to get him out of here soon, he thought.

The chair next to his bed that Nate had been sleeping in the previous night was empty. Not that Eliot had actually expected Nate to be sitting here holding his hand when he woke up. But Nate was the one who'd back him up in his quest to get out of here as soon as possible. Or at least so he hoped.

A few moments passed, then Eliot heard voices approach the cubicle. Instinctively he tensed when one of them was a voice he didn't recognize, but then he heard Nate's voice answer and felt himself relax a little.

Nate, when he finally came into sight, looked rumpled, as if he had woken up not too long ago. He was still wearing the same clothes as he had done the previous night, the top button of his shirt was undone, he was unshaved and his hair was ruffled. At first, he didn't even seem to notice that Eliot was awake but continued speaking to the doctor who was walking beside him.

"Ah, Mr. McIntyre. Good of you to finally wake up."

Nate looked up at the doctor's words, looking at Eliot with an expression that was somewhere between surprise and disbelief. But it lasted only a second, then he smiled and stepped up to the bed.

"Daniel, it's good to see you awake."

The relief in his voice rang true, even if everything else was fake. Eliot was already processing the information. Daniel McIntyre. Of course they had needed an alias for him, they couldn't risk an extended hospital stay under his real name. No doubt Nate had given the doctors a story about who he was and why he was here, and it was a story he needed to catch up on quickly. Explaining away a knife-wound must have been hard for the team, and he couldn't afford another screw up and blow their cover story after he had already nearly screwed up the job.

But for now, he had no idea what role Nate was playing. He didn't think he was capable of a lot of acting, anyway, so he settled on a weak smile and a neutral "Hey" in Nate's direction. It must have worked, because the doctor at least didn't seem to notice anything amiss.

"Now Mr. McIntyre, I'm sure you must be confused. You're at the County Hospital. I'm Doctor Williams, I've been treating you since you were brought here with a stab-wound two days ago."

Two days ago? He was missing two entire days? Eliot thought that couldn't be right, but when he looked at Nate for confirmation, the older man nodded silently.

"You lost a lot of blood, naturally, but I can tell you that you were very lucky. The knife barely missed the lung, and while the blood loss was substantial, no major arteries were damaged either. Otherwise I'm afraid to say you probably wouldn't have survived until help arrived. It took us a while to get you stabilized, but we had to move you to the ICU yesterday afternoon."

Eliot frowned. "Why?"

That one syllable scratched like barbed wire over his throat, and he couldn't help the coughs that started to tear loose from his chest at the unexpected sensation. It hurt, even with all the painkillers running through his system. Every single cough tore at his injured side and sent spikes of agony through his body.

Dr. Williams was at his bedside in two large steps and quickly raised the mattress into a more upright position. Breathing became a bit easier after that, but it didn't stop the coughs entirely. From out of nowhere, a half-full glass of water suddenly appeared in his line of vision. Eliot struggled hard at suppressing the coughs enough to get a good look. From the other side of the bed, Nate was holding out the glass of water to him, his free hand hovering unsurely beside Eliot's head, as if he wasn't quite sure whether to help him drink the water or not.

But there was just no way that Eliot was going to lie here – well, half-sit here – and accept help with something as simple as drinking a glass of water. Despite the slight shaking of his hands, Eliot reached for the glass and brought it up to his lips. The only reason why he didn't slosh water all over himself was that Nate had only filled the glass halfway to begin with, but he wasn't going to think about that now. He'd be as good as new in a day or so. It couldn't have been that bad.

Nate took the glass out of his hands and put it on the bedside table as the doctor started speaking again.

"You need to go easy on the speaking. We had you on a ventilator for the first night, your throat is still sore from that. The damage by the knife was worse than we initially assumed. Due to your extremely low blood pressure, we missed a small bleed during the initial treatment. Once your blood pressure stabilized again, the bleeding got worse. The blood put pressure on your lung and caused some respiratory distress. It was a bit of a setback, but we're monitoring you closely to avoid something like that from happening again. That you're conscious and coherent is already a good sign."

Eliot swallowed against his sore throat and deliberately kept his voice low. "When can I get out of here?"

The doctor's eyebrows shot up and vanished below his hairline. "I'd say we worry about getting you stable enough to move you out of ICU first. If your progress is good, that can be as soon as this afternoon. But I would like to keep you at least for another 48 hours to make sure that the wound starts healing and no infection sets in. Right now you're on a lot of pain medication, Mr. McIntyre. But don't underestimate how bad your injuries are. You nearly died."

Well, that definitely wasn't the first time it happened. And Eliot had never been good at recuperating in hospital. He was going to talk about that with Nate, right now talking to the doctor didn't promise any success in that department.

Williams checked various readouts on the monitors beside Eliot's bed, wrote something down in the clipboard file at the foot end of Eliot's bed, then nodded at Nate and Eliot.

"All right. Your vitals are looking good. I'll drop by in a little while for a more thorough examination of the wound. For now I'll leave you and your brother alone for a little while, I'm sure you have a lot of catching up to do. If you need anything, just use the call button and ask the nurses."

Nate thanked the doctor, then they silently listened to his receding steps until they were sure he was out of earshot. Only when he was sure that they were alone and nobody could overhear them did Eliot turn towards Nate.

"So we're brothers?"

Nate shrugged and sat back down in the chair beside Eliot's bed.

"Easiest way to get around visitation restrictions, and Hardison had three identities with the same last name, so we picked those."

"Three?"

A small smile spread on Nate's face. "Your wife is going to be back later in the morning."

Eliot rolled his eyes. His wife. Of course. Because he so loved acting that kind of stuff. Now the only question was who played the part of the happy wife.

"Who am I married to?"

"Officially, to Linda McIntyre. Though you might know her as Sophie."

Eliot smiled, but didn't say anything to interrupt. Nate was giving him the run-down of their cover story, so he needed to pay attention.

"Linda and Daniel McIntyre run a small, family owned catering business called _Deli Delight_. Mostly they cater to weddings, bar-mitzvahs and other family festivities. Linda is the organizer, and as a trained chef you take care of the catering. There are raving reviews about your stuffed mushrooms on the Deli Delight website."

Nate made a small pause, and Eliot could just imagine the fun Hardison must have had putting that website together. Their computer expert always got a little over the top with these things.

"Deli Delight was hired to cater the Moscone wedding, not knowing about the criminal connections Moscone had. During the festivities when everyone else was attending the wedding ceremony, you left the kitchen on a supply run. When you returned, you found two men fighting in there. When you tried to go in between and break them up, one of them stabbed you in the side with a kitchen knife. You managed to get out of the room, but you were too badly injured to get outside and call for help. You collapsed in the garage, where you were later found by a party guest who then called the ambulance."

Eliot nodded as he committed those facts to memory. It was a good cover story, especially considering the small amount of time Nate and the others must have had to come up with it. There was only one thing.

"What about the Butcher? And didn't the hospital contact the police?"

Nate nodded. "They did. They were referred to Agent Washington, who is the FBI-liaison officer. Interestingly, the men who were fighting in the kitchen were both on the FBI-watchlist with warrants outstanding on them. One of them was known as the Butcher of Kiev in certain circles. Agent Washington assured the doctors that the FBI had taken over the case, and that it was going to add Assault with a deadly weapon to the Butcher's charges. Since the Butcher is now in the hands of the real FBI, we don't need to worry about the hospital trying to involve the police again. They've been sufficiently reassured by Agent Washington in person. The story isn't fool-proof, but it's definitely enough to make sure that we're not found out until you're well enough to be released from the hospital."

Nate said it as if it was not much of an effort, but Eliot knew how much work must have gone into this plan, especially under the time constraints. The team had to work out an entire con just to make sure that he could stay in hospital without them being detected. It wasn't a simple thing. They were using three of the identities Hardison had set up for them in a way that would make them unable to ever use them again, they had made up a whole back-story for him, Sophie and the business they supposedly ran, they had needed to intercept the hospital's call to the police and work out a story to satisfy them in what they thought was their professional duty. Not to mention that one of them, possibly Hardison, was posing as an FBI agent, and with the real FBI in town working the Moscone case that was even more of a risk than it normally was.

He had really screwed this one up royally.

"What really happened?"

Nate sighed. "I send you out to deposit the money in the car. When you didn't come back from that, we spread out and searched for you. Hardison found you in the garage. He staved off the bleeding until the ambulance arrived. On the way to the ER we figured out the back-story. You pretty much heard the rest from the doctor."

Eliot nodded tiredly. This had been the run down, and he knew that the chewing out would be the next thing to follow. Best to go into the offence immediately.

"I screwed up."

Nate sighed and rubbed a hand over his unshaved face. "Yeah. Yeah, you did."

And for a fleeting moment Eliot wondered if that was it, the moment where Nate told him that he wasn't going to be a part of Leverage anymore after this. Of course he would continue to do what he did. He didn't need Nate or the team for that. Over the years he had acquired quite a reputation, it wasn't going to be difficult to find something else to do. And with all the money that was left from his share of their very first job, he didn't have to worry, anyway.

But – and the realization came as quite a surprise – Eliot didn't want his time as part of Leverage to be over. He wasn't used to it, but working with the team had been fun. He'd be sad to see it over.

But what was he supposed to say? _It won't happen again? I'm sorry?_ Eliot wasn't someone to toss out platitudes. And more importantly, Nate wasn't the kind of guy to accept platitudes. It was one of the reasons why Eliot had come to respect the man so much. So Eliot said nothing.

For a moment, silence settled over the room, only interrupted by the regular beating of the heart monitor beside the bed. Nate looked down at his folded hands for a few moments, then he looked up with a sigh.

"Is there any way that you can explain this to me?"

The question surprised Eliot, because he had no idea what there was to explain. He had misjudged the Butcher during their fight and had ended up with a knife in his side because of it. There wasn't much to explain. But if Nate wanted the details, he was going to give them.

"I made the mistake to let him corner me against the counter. It was stupid, but once it happened there wasn't much I could do anymore."

Eliot looked straight at Nate after those words, trying to judge his reaction. He didn't know what reaction he had expected, but surprise and bewilderment certainly hadn't been it.

"What?"

"What '_what_'? The Butcher, that's what. You wanted me to explain. He cornered me against the counter and I couldn't dodge the knife."

Nate stared at him for a few seconds, then he slowly shook his head.

"I wasn't talking about that, Eliot. For crying out loud, I know that there's always a chance that an opponent gets the better of you in a fight. That's absolutely not what I meant. What I want to know is why you didn't call for help after it happened. You still had your microphone on you when Hardison found you in the garage. Hell, I came into the kitchen right after it happened! Why didn't you say a single word about the fact that you were hurt?"

Eliot swallowed hard, despite the lingering rawness of his throat. His memories of everything after the fight with the Butcher were hazy, but he remembered how he had thought about calling for help right before he had passed out. It had been too late then, and he had seriously thought he could get through it until the job was done.

"I thought I could manage. I've worked jobs injured before."

Nate shook his head. "You were bleeding out, Eliot. You put a pressure bandage on the wound yourself, and even that didn't stop the bleeding. I know how much you know about field triage, so don't even try to tell me that you had no idea that the wound needed immediate medical attention."

"We had a job to finish!", Eliot interrupted, raised voice tearing painfully at his throat. But he wasn't going to sit back and take this without trying to justify his decision. "We had to wrap up the job."

Nate shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and index finger. Eliot could literally see how he was trying to keep his calm, and he didn't quite understand why. When he spoke again, his voice was carefully measured and calm.

"To make one thing perfectly clear, Eliot. If you, or anybody else on the team, gets hurt on a job, I need to know. Immediately. With what we're doing, we can't afford something like this to happen again."

Eliot nodded, even though he wasn't sure whether he was about to be kicked off the team or not. "I understand."

Nate shook his head again. "No, I don't think you do."

"What do you mean?"

Nate pulled his chair a little closer to the bed, shifting so that he was sitting facing Eliot.

"What we're doing always bears the risk of one of us getting hurt. And when that happens, I don't give a damn about the job, and whether or not it gets wrapped up. This time the job was nearly over with. But what if it hadn't been? What if the bad guys had still been on the loose? I care about the people we work for, but my priority is always the team. The most important thing about each and every single job we work is that we all get out without getting caught, and without getting hurt. As soon as that is no longer safe, I'll pull the plug. No matter how important the job seems. Am I making myself clear here, Eliot?"

And honestly, Eliot wasn't too sure. Because of course he knew all these things, but he also knew that Nate was aware that he was the kind of guy to solve problems on his own, without calling for help.

Nate rubbed a hand over his face again at the lack of verbal reaction from Eliot.

"Right. Then let me put it in uncertain terms. You're a part of a _team_ now, Eliot. I know that you've done things differently in the past, but that's over now. If you're a part of my team, you play by the rules. And that means that if you get hurt, you cut out the macho-bullshit crap and tell me about it. If you lose control over a situation, you call for help. That's the only way we all can focus on the job and get it done."

He shook his head and ran a hand through his hair as he searched for the right words.

"You are a part of this team, Eliot. And a team takes care of each other. Until the doctor called me out earlier, you haven't been alone for more than a few minutes since you were brought into the recovery room. That's the thing about being part of a team. We don't only work with each other. And that takes trust. The others and me, we trust you to have our backs. The question is, do you trust us to have yours? Because if that isn't there, we have a problem."

But strangely, Eliot didn't even have to think much about Nate's words. He didn't trust easily. He couldn't afford to trust people, especially not in a line of business where everyone was only concerned about their own gains.

He still wouldn't tell Sophie or Parker what he had done with the money from their first job. He wouldn't spill his soul to Hardison, or share some deep dark secrets with Nate.

But he trusted that Nate would always find a backup plan to get them out of a mess, that Hardison would hack his fingers off if that was what it took, that Parker would do the craziest things, and that Sophie would act the hell out of just about anything to get a job done and get them all out. As far as the jobs were concerned, he trusted these people. It was still building, but it was there.

It's just that he wasn't used to it.

He wasn't used to have anybody to fall back on when things went south. His first thought upon a situation getting out of hand wasn't to call for help, but to figure out a way to get himself out of it.

And maybe that was it.

Maybe that was what he had to do as his part of being on the team. Not only make sure that the others got out of whatever job they were working, with physical force if necessary. But trust them to do the same for him. They already had, after all. They had gotten him out of this mess, and they had stuck around after the job was done.

Nate was watching him with both eyebrows raised, waiting for Eliot's answer. And it was clear that this was one question he wanted answered, and wouldn't accept any elusive answers. So he looked Nate straight in the eyes and nodded.

"I do."

Nate nodded, the lines on his face easing somewhat.

"So we don't have a problem?"

"No. No problem."

"Good." Nate leaned back in his chair and checked his watch, his posture a lot less tense than only minutes ago. "You should probably try to get some more rest before the doctor comes back."

Now it was Eliot's turn to frown. "Why?"

"Well, you won't be getting much rest after he's done with his examination. And the others want to come see you. Hardison spent every free minute of the past days downloading every movie ever made onto that small portable DVD…," he waved his hand around helplessly. "…thing, so that you won't get bored stuck here in the hospital. And Parker is going to be here in a little more than an hour. Trust me, she's been cooped up without anything to do for a little too long. Sophie told me that yesterday she crawled through the air-conditioning shafts at headquarters because she was bored. She has a little too much leftover energy right now."

Eliot chuckled. "I can imagine."

Nate shook his head. "No, I don't think you can. She's like Robin Williams on caffeine. Once she sees that you're awake, she's probably going to talk your ears bloody. And I can't stick around to save you because right now it's not a good idea to leave Hardison and Sophie alone for too long."

That surprised Eliot, because the two of them had always seemed to get along just fine. "What happened?"

Nate gave a long-suffering sigh.

"There's that little matter of a pair of boots."

"Boots." Why did that sound familiar? Eliot had no idea, but somehow the fact that Hardison and Sophie had a problem concerning boots didn't surprise him as much as it probably should have. "Sophie's boots? What happened?"

Nate rolled his eyes. "Obviously, vomit and leather are not a really good combination in her opinion. She and Hardison have been having a non-too small argument about how much a pair of boots can possibly cost. Their opinions on that matter differ quite a bit."

Eliot shook his head. "Do I even want to know?"

"No. Trust me, you don't."

There were steps approaching Eliot's cubicle, and a moment later Dr. Williams stepped into view.

"Mr. McIntyre? I'd like to examine you now. I'd have to ask your brother to leave for a little while for that."

Nate turned towards the doctor. "Of course. Just one moment."

The doctor nodded and took a few steps away from the cubicle. When he was out of earshot, Nate turned back towards Eliot.

"I'll be outside until Parker comes."

Eliot nodded. "Okay."

Nate turned to leave, but after a few steps turned around again as another thought struck him.

"And while we were already talking about clothes earlier, you owe Hardison a new scarf."

Eliot had no real idea what this was about, but he laughed and nodded. He probably owed all of them a lot more than that.

Nate gave a small nod of his head, then he turned and left the cubicle.

Eliot watched him leave, taking a moment to sink back into his pillow and think about what had just happened. Somehow, he had the feeling that he had made a commitment somewhere during this conversation, without even being consciously aware of it. But maybe he had already made that commitment a while ago, and hadn't noticed until now.

Part of the team.

And what an odd bunch they were that had been jumbled together into this team. Parker was ten kinds of crazy, but in a way that made it almost impossible not to like her. Hardison, for all his geekiness and rambling about things Eliot didn't really understand, was just as laid back as Eliot was, and not someone he had problems connecting with. Sophie wasn't good enough of an actress outside of a con to hide that she really cared for what they did. And Nate, well. Nate was as good an example for a heavy load of past ghosts that were still haunting him as any of them were. But he was holding them together, and somehow he made it work that all their differences didn't cause them to fall apart, but actually made them work as a team.

And somehow, that bunch of people was a team Eliot didn't mind being a part of.

* * *

**The End**

* * *

As always, thanks for reading. Please let me know what you think. Thanks a lot.


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